Rush Limbaugh’s recent dismissal of Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute” reminds me of how much more vulnerable women are than men to the abusive ad hominem. There is a a greater number of abusive words associated with women: add “whore,” “bitch,” “cunt,” “old maid,” “hag,” “bag,” “jezebel,” “hoochie mama,” etc., as opposed to “prick,” “dick,” and “boy toy.” Plus the feminine insults tend to be considered so bad that people often won’t actually say them, but only allude to them, for instance in saying “the c-word.”
On top of that, women tend not to be listened to, so the ad hominem may always be more effective against women. Merely pointing out that a speaker is a woman may act as reason to ignore her. The same would apply to any marginalized people. One’s very identity can undermine one’s claims and one’s reasons.
Lorraine Code has argued in a few places that the dismissal of women’s reasons for being women’s reasons should be identified as ad feminam. The vulnerability of women to ad hominem suggests indeed that ad feminam deserves recognition as a distinct category.
Reblogged this on Hey, lady! and commented:
Here’s a useful and sadly all too apt reminder about the prevalence of rhetorical attacks on women speakers *because they’re women speakers* from the RAIL (Reasoning, Argumentation and Informal Logic) blog.
Thanks so much for the reminder of “ad feminam.”
A friend tried to make the argument that “slut” is not derisive of women per se but rather derisive regarding sexual promiscuity. Thus “slut” is not equivalent to say “kike” or “fag” since it is targeting behavior and not an aspect of social identity. However when I asked him to give me a real sustained historical case of “slut” being used against men who are sexually promiscuous (not an individual or isolated case) he was hard pressed not only to simply find a case but to even come up with a comparable term that had been used fairly equally between men and women. This distinction between a term that connotes behavior vs a specific social identity is illusory in the case of “slut,” “whore,” “jezebel,” etc. They are so deeply embedded in sexism and patriarchy.
Reblogged this on Be the Change: Leave the Cave! and commented:
A Short blog post I like and agree with. Also goes back to the ideas that a woman who has been promiscuous or even had more than one sexual partner is somehow a slut….Rush went way too far.
I like that: the ad feminam attack. The attack that ignores a woman’s argument, and attempts to denigrate her by implying that she is promiscuous or should be identified by a female sexual body part.